Gartner expects there to be some 26 billion connected devices, machines, pallets of inventory and more worldwide by 2020, creating an explosion of data that must be first managed, then leveraged.

We then interviewed one of the co-authors of that note, Gartner's Michael Burkett, along similar lines last two weeks ago as part of our weekly Supply Chain Video News with CSCMP. The time to start planning for the supply chain possibilities is now, Burkett says